The quality of democracy and life in a community is directly affected by the level of constructive engagement of citizens. In the last City election in 2008, voter turnout in the last City election was an abysmal 18%. I believe it is the responsibility of elected representatives at all levels of government to engage the community and encourage informed debate. It is easy but inherently wrong to make decisions that serve vocal minority interests, just because the silent majority is too busy with the demands ofdaily life to get involved. We have to reach out, but how?

To explore this issue, I submitted—and Council approved—a motion to strike a Task Force on civic engagement. I worked with five committed and outstanding volunteers for six months to investigate engagement. We met with members of the community and with each other to discuss and explore what concrete steps the City could take to best encourage communityparticipation in municipal issues. Here is our report, which sets out 28 detailed recommendations and our reasons for suggesting them.

Our recommendations can be boiled down to these broad categories:

· Improve internet presence and make better use of social media· Improve “user-friendliness” of City government and Council meetings· Focus on public spaces· Consider a lower voting age· Reach out to community associations and strata councils· Be more proactive about getting information out at election time

Ben Alldritt of the North Shore News wrote this article about our task force and report. What do you think? Please get in touch to tell me what would encourage you to get and stay involved.